RawDataSet_MCS

ABSTRACT: The purpose of this study is to utilize a Monte-Carlo Simulation (MCS) to study the behaviour of water diffusion within the white matter to have a better understanding of the ultrahigh-b DWI (UHb-DWI) signal-b of spinal cord white matter. Recently, UHb-DWI method presented a novel biomarker with very high specificity to demyelination in the cervical spinal cord. It is an advanced version of diffusion-tensor MRI (DTI) and diffusion-kurtosis MRI (DKI) with greatly simplified data acquisition. While conventional DTI relies on the water diffusion within the extra-axonal (EA) space, UHb-DWI provides information about water exchange across the myelin sheath as well as intra-axonal (IA) and EA spaces. The MCS of the water diffusion within the one-dimensional white-matter, such as spinal cord and optic nerve, has been very helpful to understand the deep microscopical environment with different pathology in active lesion of the cervical spinal cord (CSC) in patients with multiple sclerosis (MS). MCS experiment was performed with various degrees of demyelination and axonal loss. The measured UHb-DWI signal from the active lesion and normal-appearing white-matter region MS CSC were matched to the signal-b curves, which were numerically synthesized for various fractions of demyelination and axonal loss, to search for the best matching curve. Although we present the date from the cervical spinal cord of MS CSC, the method can be applied to other white-matter diseases, such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and degenerative cervical myelopathy (DCM) as well.

DATA DESCRIPTION: There is one raw data set: Numerical Monte-Carlo Simulation (MCS) data. MCS data can be processed using the included processing software, written in Python 3.x.Signal-b curve can be generated using these MCS data and software for diffusion gradient applied along angle from the fiber direction, for instance 0 degree for axial DWI and 90 degree for radial DWI.